


Red. And A Little More Red

by kaixo (ballpoint)



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Liverpool F.C., M/M, The Ache in Your Legs Footy Ficathon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-28
Updated: 2014-10-28
Packaged: 2018-02-23 00:03:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2526557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ballpoint/pseuds/kaixo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Taken from prompt:Stevie owns an apartment in the city (hell, any city), and sometimes after a loss hits him hard he heads over there. Takeout, too much beer, and snuggling up to the land-lady's dog is a usual night.</p><p>Alex calls Xabi and suggests a visit.</p><p>Stevie is a touchy feely drunk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red. And A Little More Red

**Author's Note:**

> OP, I tried to get everything you wanted in there. The prompt slipped from its leash and became this in the end. Unbeta'd but then 99 percent of my things are. Sorry. Football prompt from this link:http://thesilverwitch.livejournal.com/31896.html?thread=597912#t597912

After a long pull of beer, Adam’s apple working as he sucked at the contents of the bottle and swallowed, Steven pulled the bottle away from his mouth with a muffled ‘pop’. He wiped at his lips with the back of his hand, and Xabi waited to hear his verdict. 

“This is good beer,” he scratched at his chin, face all frowns and stubble, hair mussed. “Thanks, Xabs.”

“It is the- well,” Xabi started as he took in their surroundings. For all intents and purposes what the English called a _bedsit_ , with everything in one room- save the bathroom off side. They were seated on a daybed, their legs stretched out in front of them, the TV more functioning as ambient light than anything, volume on low, flashes of various landscapes flickering across the screen, the room in twilight because the sun hadn’t set as yet, but still too early to flick the light switches on. 

The air tinted with the scent of spices from the take out that Steven ordered, the plastic bags on the coffee table before them; Steven’s cell phone, screen black as it slumbered, with the rest of the beer. A snapshot of the modern life, and Xabi resisted the urge to snap a picture on his mobile. To top it off, the dreary magnolia coloured walls, coupled with the furniture more functional Ikea than designer, it seemed more an apartment for a student than a Liverpool captain on appropriate wages. “A housewarming gift,” he finished as he held up his bottle. 

“Ah,” Steven waved, taking in the small room, his voice pleasant, with its characteristic Scouse burr. “Don’t you like what I’ve done with the place?”

Xabi tucked his tongue in his cheek, and did a neutral sound of, “Hmmm.”

Steven drained the rest of his beer, and Xabi followed, because Steven was right, it was good beer. Belgian, more barley wine than actual beer; blonde in colour, smooth and semi sweet going down. Better than the bottle of piss masquerading as beer Steven had had in his hand as he opened the door at Xabi’s knock an hour ago.

 _’Xabs,’ Steven greeted after a few seconds of baffled speechlessness, rubbing at his stubble. ‘What brings you here?’ Even then, half way towards drunk, he tried to be polite - the manner of a man who knew he possessed a temper, and took measures to bank it over the years. Xabi held up the cardboard carrier in his hand, the dark brown bottles tinkling against each other._

_‘I brought beer.’_

_Steven leaned into the door frame, his brows beetling as if deciding on the next course of action and taking his time about it. Xabi knew that look: torn between being a good host and letting him in, or hope that Xabi got the hint to make his apologies and leave. Xabi stood there, not saying a word, refusing to make it easy, and for a while, they stared at each other. Xabi dressed as if he had somewhere to go, smart coat and shiny shoes included. Steven as if he intended to spend a weekend marathoning box sets of dodgy American comedies, with short sleeves, jogging bottoms and bare feet._

_Finally, Steven smirked, a twist of lips that didn’t meet his eyes, because being a good host won out over dodgy comedies. ‘You’re all right, come on in, then.’_

Steven rested his head against the daybed, his eyes closed, and mouth soft. Xabi leaned against the the daybed- comfortable, this didn’t feel like an Ikea- and looked at Steven. His hair dishevelled as if he hadn’t combed it since he slumped off the field a couple days ago, the bags under his eyes more pronounced, his stubble tinged with grey. Shoulders still strong, because he insisted on carrying all the weight on them, a misguided Atlas. 

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” Steven answered, his eyes still closed. “I don’t, I sound like a misery guts,” he opened his eyes, reached over for another beer. His arm corded with muscle, thatched with hair tinted blue when the light from the TV hit it. “Points on the table, Maths-” his laughter brittle and bitter, a sound that Xabi hadn’t heard before. “I didn’t get into football so that I could do fookin’ Maths- but when you _lose_ to the point where a draw seems like a win- I do the Maths. Get out my daughter’s abacus, because I’m _thick_ -” he stopped, took another swallow from the bottle, shifting his gaze to Xabi with narrowed eyes. “What brings you here back to Ol’ Blighty then?”

“You,” Xabi answered simply. “I thought I would bring- beer.”

“Bullshyte, Alex put you up to this, didn’t she?”

“You make it sound -” and Xabi scrambled in his language banks to find the appropriate word. “Unpleasant. Seeing you is never unpleasant. Strange,” he gave a pointed look at the crack in the wall to the fair right of the TV, sidestepping the question. “But never unpleasant.”

The corner of Steven’s mouth lifted, his eyes slightly warmer now, and that might have been from the beer. “Living with me can be. Sometimes, when things are- what they are-I- I get into a _mood_. Alex -” at this he took another pull of beer. “She and the girls- they don’t need to see me like this. I’m aware I can be a _misery guts_ \- so I come here for a night, stew in it, and then -” he rubbed at his face, before staring at the TV. “I put it away.”

Xabi still sipped at his beer, watching the flickering images on the TV, decent size flat screen for a bedsit like this, the flat warm, with the hum of heating in the background. He’d shucked off his coat by the door, kicked off his shoes and went barefoot, because the place seemed clean enough. Knowing Steven as long as he had, he’d always been aware of his moods. How they descended and swirled around like a thick fog, darkened his outlook. The melancholy would stay until Steven managed to throw it off, before the next match. There were the times, however, when it seemed they swallowed him whole. 

“You can’t do it alone,” Xabi said at last. “I know you English like your- _individuality_. You think one man can do it all. It’s just as bad as your tackling. The rest of the world’s moved on from it, but - you hold on to it, like your Queen. There’s this saying in German- I can’t speak the language, so I can’t quote it directly. But it is something along the lines of if you want to win, you have to be eleven friends. Eleven, not one.”

After a short, sharp quiet, where Steven didn’t respond, his body swaying a little; like a blade of grass in a gentle breeze, Xabi tried again, reaching over to touch his forearm. Half amused as Steven’s body listed into his side, the bulk and heat of him welcome and familiar. 

“You are... legless.”

“ _Hmnh_ \- had a few before you came with reinforcements.” 

“What you were drinking before? Oh, Stevie- that was not- beer.”

“ _Cruzcampo_ isn’t beer? You wot, mate?”

“No, _cabrón,_ it’s horse’s piss,” Xabi gave an exaggerated shudder, and the laugh he got in response was weak, but still, a laugh. Which gave him room to broach the subject again from a different angle. “Remember Benitez?”

“Ah, don’t I.”

“How he said you ran around too much? And me too, yes? That you had to find your slot in the team and hold it, let everyone else do their part?”

“Hmm,” Steven said, and Xabi felt the weight of Steven’s head on his shoulder, and it was nothing to rest his head against Steven’s, as he gathered in closer. “I remember,” Steven’s voice drowsy, accent deep and throaty to the point of a gargle. Nine years ago, slurred by liquor and exhaustion, it would have been near incomprehensible, but all the foreign players at Anfield forced Steven to tone down the Scouse somewhat in order to be understood. “I remember being pissed off, because no one had told me that before.”

“If you want to do it all, to be a one man show, you got into the wrong sport, my friend. You should have chose your tennis, gone to Wimbledon. Or do golf and go to Augusta with only a caddie for counsel. Stevie...” Xabi’s voice trailed off, as he finished his bottle of beer, using it to buy time to think, not knowing what to say without sounding like a smug arsehole, or an insincere one- at least in English. He’d transferred out, left Liverpool and her problems behind. He loved the club, loved the experience, but left for a better one. With Real Madrid, losses were rarities. More a blip than a slump in form, an intellectual reckoning where you tweaked and fiddled and it came together rapidly, a wobble of form treated like a passing shower of rain in Madrid in summer- a _curiosity_ \- rather than a crisis of faith.

“I know, I know,” Steven’s gusty sigh, laced with the sweet barley beer from Wallonia tickled his nose. Their thighs touched, Steven’s face in the curve of Xabi’s neck. Xabi closed his eyes against the feel Steven’s warm breath there, Steven’s fingers tracing designs on his thigh. Nonsensical designs, like figure eights, and silly fun you’d doodle on a friend’s back when you were children, asking them which words you were spelling out, making them giggle when they said it aloud. 

These touches were not nonsense, as much as sensations that sprang to life and caught him off guard. 

Not silly, not innocent- not with his fingers splayed against thigh. Darker, with an edge of danger to it, skin goose bumping from the odd pleasure of it. Something different, but -

“You’re drunk,” Xabi rested his hand on top of Steven’s own, but didn’t stop its movement. Something perverse in him wondered how the scene would play out, and in the same instant deciding to see it through, because this _asterisk, footnote_ in the story of them? This was new. 

“Xabi-” Steven’s voice hitched, his breath hot and humid on Xabi’s neck. “Mate, I miss you.”

Xabi closed his eyes against the throb of emotion in Steven’s voice. They hadn’t spoken about their different paths and leagues in years. Not since three years ago, with their parting shots in the press, after Steven had passed on the offer of Real Madrid and Jose Mourinho. _Life goes on,_ Xabi had said, drawing a line under the entire exchange, _and so must I_. Steven called and apologised, Xabi accepted, and they had gone to great lengths not to speak about their League imposed distances after that. 

The best way out was to make light of it, to ignore the edge of longing. Xabi counted to three before he spoke, willing his voice to come out evenly. “You only tell me you love me when you’re drunk.”

Steven laughed, the gust of air against Xabi’s ear making his pulse skittish. “There’s a saying for that, I’m sure.” 

Swallowing around the lump in his throat, Xabi tightened his hand around Steven’s wrist, his breathing harsh as if he’d done a hard forty five minutes on the pitch before the whistle blew. “Stevie,” he gritted out the words. “Stop.”

Steven moved away, his hand dropping from Xabi's thigh, giving Xabi the space he needed, taking his warmth away. Xabi looked at Steven, his eyes deep blue in the deepening twilight, dark and turbulent, his expression naked as an open wound, and Xabi couldn’t unsee it. The complexion of the air now changed, a jump from easy companionship to charged. Something _electric_ now flickered to life; sensations sharper. He hyperaware of all the physical attributes that made Steven, Steven. The forehead crumpled in a perennial frown, the lines at the corner of his eyes, the bags under them, as if he hadn’t slept. His stubble silver and brown, more silver than brown- unlike his hair.

Touch all of a sudden seemed imperative, as Xabi found himself shifting, closing the distance between them, stroking the corner of Steven’s eye with his thumb, and even half buzzed on good Belgian beer, Xabi knew this to be true. 

It had always been there between them. This unspeakable, unshakable thing. 

Steven held his wrist tightly, as he stroked his thumb - dry and rough - on the back of Xabi’s hand. Xabi turned and twisted, resting his forehead against Steven’s, the sofa barely big enough for both of them, their legs tangled into each other. Xabi’s skin flushed with every touch, every shift, as he half climbed, got half dragged on top of Steven, taking all this in. 

They had never acted on it, never. 

Oh, they had been younger then, and Xabi never questioned it. The ease of how they just fell into each other. Accepted it as a stroke of good luck that he had liked the captain of his new team, glad the feeling was mutual. Their uncomplicated physical touches another thing he accepted. Giddy with happiness that he had found new friends in a new country on his new adventure. Relished how their styles clicked like pieces of a puzzle, tactically and aesthetically, because it made everything easier, ridding themselves of any petty jealousies which might have derailed their shared objectives. 

“Stevie-”

“Mate, we’re well sozzled,” Steven smiled for real then. A soft, loopy thing that reached and warmed his eyes for the first time. “Xabi-” Steven’s fingertips brushed the line of his Xabi's jaw, ruffling his beard, leaving the zing of touches in his wake. “It doesn’t matter.” 

Xabi dragged his thumb along Steven’s lower lip, and for the first time in a long time, he _looked_ at a face he’d known through the years as well as he did his own. A bit craggier, lines crinkling at the edges of his eyes, but still him. Steven’s eyes and face telling the story he’d hidden all this time, and Xabi wondering how he’d missed it, just- _joder_ \- where had he been when this part of their story was being written? Oh he knew Steven felt things intensely, took situations a bit too much to heart, but to be classified as one of those things- stunned. Steven, being Steven, offered an exit, _It doesn’t matter_.

At this point, he had no choice but to follow through. Xabi leaned in and pressed his lips against Steven’s, his pulse kicking up a notch when Steven’s mouth gasped open under his, hot and eager, breath and tongue tasting of the beer they shared, with the flavour of him threading through. Steven drew him closer, his arm around Xabi's neck, as their kisses spun out, Xabi’s eyes sliding closed, his laugh shaky as Steven nipped at his lower lip, his hand slipping under Xabi’s button down. A choked sigh as Steven nipped at the sensitive juncture between ear and jaw, the scrape of teeth against his throat, the shock of new touch as their feverish skins slid and dragged against each other. 

This now an unread chapter in the story of _them_ , not a footnote, Xabi realised as he tumbled against Steven; his mind hazing with sensation, taking whatever Steven threw at him, giving what he demanded, because Xabi had always been the player of his current coach.

***

“At times, you know,” Steven’s voice slurred in his ear, his touch warm, sure and smoothing along his shoulders, his back, his spine. “I feel like that Macbeth guy, like.”

Xabi tucked his face into Steven’s neck, using him to block out the morning’s light, breathing in the scent of cologne and hops. They’d woken up earlier and did their toilet, only to drift back for a lie in, a tacit understanding not wanting this snatch of time to end just yet. Steven’s nod to being a good host was to wrap them under a sheet taken from one of the drawers of the day bed, smelling faintly of floral detergent and the long gone summer. 

“As in, you have killed someone for the captain’s armband?”

“No, you _muppet_ ,” and he felt the flick of Steven’s fingers against the curve of his shoulder, the press of lips against his hair. Steven’s heart a steady thrum against his, Xabi half content to the point of sleepy as Steven stroked his bare back. “Not so bloodthirsty. More like, ‘My Kingdom for a horse’. Or in my case, ‘My Kingdom for a trophy, an FA cup, anything. I’m not picky.”

Xabi opened his eyes then, didn’t move. Made his voice neutral, so that Steven wouldn’t hear the censure in it. “You could have come to Real Madrid.”

“Oh, I know,” Steven’s hand stopped for a beat, signalling that he heard the faint scolding anyway. Another beat and he resumed stroking Xabi’s back again with slow and fluid strokes, censure forgotten. “I might regret it when I’m older, and crabbier, but. I couldn’t have left. Liverpool isn’t Real Madrid, I know, but -it’s Liverpool. Probably, probably more winnings might not happen for me. Probably I was meant to have one shot at Istanbul, and that’s it. That as long as I’m with Liverpool, I might retire without winning anything else. Just losses and draws, but that’s the choice I’ve made.”

Xabi _never_ understood the affliction Steven possessed. To plant oneself and wind into the tapestry of only one club, _one_ league, when there were other leagues to conquer, other histories to write yourself into. Steven tried explaining it to him once, and later, because he really tried to grapple with that mindset, because Xabi tried to understand whom he loved- asked Iker Casillas to see if he had anything new to share. But the sentimentality espoused by each man had been another language, where intellectually, you could _understand_ but emotionally, Xabi couldn’t see it. He had said that to Steven once, back in 2010, when Steven passed on the overtures of Real Madrid; _I just don’t get it, hombre. Joder, I just... sorry._ Steven shook his head, then, because they’d stopped trying to convince each other. 

That was another thought for another time, as he focused on the here and now. His mind snagging on the last thought he’d had before Steven had snogged him senseless, hours ago, now finding them in a tangle of warmth and limbs. 

“How long?” Xabi asked, the question in his head now pertinent, shifting so that he could see Steven’s face, but still wanting to have Steven’s hands on him. 

At Steven’s studied silence, Xabi pinched Steven’s waist with his fingers, enough for Steven to huff out a breath. “We’re drunk, remember?”

Steven froze then, staring at the crack in the ceiling, instead of looking at him. “A while. Before.”

“Before -?” Xabi raised an eyebrow, the prickly feeling of annoyance bumping up against contentment. 

“FFS, Xabi,” Steven’s voice edged into exasperation. “What do you want, a timeline?”

“Before Real Madrid?”

“It doesn’t-” Steven pushed him off him, and in a fluid move, shifted from under him to the edge of the daybed, and Xabi found himself facing Steven’s back. “Just leave it, Xabi. Just- give me this.”

Xabi opened his mouth to say- anything really, as Steven’s phone rang, and he left the day bed, reaching for the phone on the coffee table and clicked it on, clad in nothing but boxers. After last night, Xabi felt as if a switch had been flicked on, throwing Steven into a new light, and he needed the time to absorb this new state of play.

“Hey, Mrs Soady, I haven’t forgotten, I-” he laughed, and it came out rusty at he rubbed at his eyes. “Yes, I had a friend over, and we- no, _nooooo_ us, three sheets to the wind? Never,” and Mrs Soady must have been a wit, because she coaxed another laugh out of Steven, a genuine one in the space of a minute. “No, don’t trouble y’self, no breakfast for us. We’ll manage. Yes... Fifteen minutes? Lovely.”

He clicked off, and gave Xabi a look over, mostly considering, somewhat annoyed. “I’ve got to go dog walking, you’re welcome to come if you’d like.”

***

When it came to English weather, nothing ever changed. The skies the colour and texture of cold oatmeal, the weather just as pleasant, as they tripped along in one of the patch of green spaces along the borders of the city, Xabi keeping up with Steven, who half jogged, half loped behind a labrador that strained at its leash, his other hand trying to hold the takeaway cup of coffee without it spilling. It seemed when Steven had those dark dog days and crashed into his bedsit upstairs, he ran errands for the landlady- and one of them involved walking her dog, Wes.

Or well, trying, as it tugged at its leash, body squirming, tail wagging like a metronome set to high tempo, before Steven got the hint and slipped it off its collar. Wes galloped away leaving them in its wake, barking happily, head turned and running in circles as if waiting for something. With a wry smile at Xabi, who held both cups of coffee now- he slipped a tennis ball out of his pocket, palmed it in his hand. Assumed the stance of a baseball pitcher, stretched into the wind up, getting momentum before he extended his wrist, letting the ball go. The ball swung into a high arc, before it flattened and travelled out to the far edge of the green. Wes circled his head up as he tracked the ball’s trajectory, before he shot after it in a blur of orange-brown, barking with glee all the way, the barking growing fainter in the distance, leaving them alone in silence for a little while. Save nothing but the rumble of traffic in the distance, of the world going about its day. 

Steven took the coffee off Xabi with a mumbled thanks, as he sipped at it.

“I don’t believe in wishes,” Xabi began, looking down at his coffee in his cup. He’d ordered an espresso, and it was now almost done, more a streak in the bottom of the cup than a mouthful. 

“At our level - there’s no reason to, you know this. Things work or they do not. You make them work if you can, or you change them until they do. Tactics, players, teams, even coaches. But I wish-” Xabi bit at the cuticle of his thumb, as he thought about his next words. His eyes tracked Wes’ movements, the dog’s fur rippling under the dull light of the day, shining with rude health. He briefly snuck a look at Steven, who seemed to be staring at Wes in the distance too. The park clear and quiet, due to it being early and on a weekday, when everyone was either at work or school. He took his thumb from his mouth, before he started to bite at the nail, only to catch himself slipping into the habit, and deliberately, pushed his hand in his pocket. He sipped at the dregs of his beverage, trying to arrange words in tones that didn’t sound non judgemental. “I wish you had told me.”

“You were on your way out, it- it didn’t matter in the scheme of things.”

“Stevie-” and he got cut off as Wes arrowed back, ball in mouth, dropping the ball at Xabi’s feet. He dropped to his knees, putting his coffee to one side, making a face at the state of the ball, now gooey with dog spittle. Wes skipped and twisted in place, with little yips escaping, unable to contain his excitement, Xabi realised. This dog liked chasing after balls. Couldn’t Mrs Soady have had a lapdog or - a cat?

“Here,” and from the corner of his eye, dangled one of those thin plastic gloves you used for food prep. “It’s not the best, but better than nothing.”

“She doesn’t have a---” Xabi's vocabulary failed him again. “A... thing for this ball?”

“Don't get me started," Steven muttered in the resigned tones suggesting Mrs Soady had no truck with... what that thing was. Xabi tugged on the cellophane glove, before he started to stroke Wes, murmuring to him in Euskera telling him to calm down. Wes refused to be swayed by his smoky murmurs, as he pawed for the ball. Xabi obliged, repeating Steven’s actions, as he threw the ball, not so high, but flatter, and further, as it rolled into the hedge in the fair side of the green. 

“Show off,” Steven clapped and whooped. “That will keep Wes busy for a while yet, I hope he doesn’t find a body part or something.”

“Never thought of you as a dog walker.”

“Supplements me wages.”

Xabi smiled at that little joke, as he tugged the cellophane glove off, and Steven dropped it in one of the plastic bags he carried. The trials of being a temporary dog owner. They walked on; the morning still young, coffee finished now, and cups disposed in one of the little bins that dotted the park. Hours till Xabi had to catch a plane back. Still time to try and make it right, to reset _them_. He opened his mouth to speak again, but Steven beat him to it. 

“It’s horrible, when something’s switched on, and that’s all you can see and feel. It’s like, watching a game, and there’s a space in the defence and no one is marking that player who’s poaching. He's a danger, an upset, and you’re like, ‘C’mon lads, can’t you see him?’ But they don’t, and they pay for it. Imagine that game going on a loop, like, and you screaming _can’t you see it_? After a while, you start to doubt if it were there at all, or you ignore it. Then one day-” a pause here, and Xabi saw the twitch of the muscle in Steven’s jaw, the set of his shoulders as he deliberated what to say next. “One day,” he continued, “imagine that someone else saw the same game as you, the same moves and the result doesn’t matter, because for once, you didn’t see it alone. Xabi-” Steven turned to him, eyes haunted. “I’m sorry about last night, I should have never- it’s my issue, not yours.”

For a brief moment, Xabi didn't know what to say, but feeling stung, his tones came out sharp to the point of cutting. “So it’s another thing you put on your shoulders, another hurt that you keep to yourself - like some sort of-” 

“It’s not something you share between eleven friends, lad. Or even one.”

“Stevie-” and words failed him after that. Sometimes, even though Xabi spoke three languages with varying degrees of fluency, he couldn’t find words for every situation, so he told himself he wouldn’t ask again, _How long_? To ask was terribly unfair; a curiosity on his side, an emotional marker on Steven’s; something to be locked down tight, another loss with the rest of the losses to be mourned over in secret, away from everyone. 

A short, sharp whistle pierced the air as Steven placed his pinkie fingers in his mouth and blew, the orange-brown blur of Wes coming from the end of the green and bulleting towards them, ball in its mouth. Steven dropped to his haunches, arms outstretched as Wes bounded into them, barking and whimpering with canine bliss. “Good boy,” Steven murmured, and Xabi looked on. Steven’s hands gentle as he stroked Wes from snout to tail, checking to see if he had any cuts or thorns from his little sojourn. His mind flashing on Steven's hands on him the night before- and put it away. Steven kept on talking, unaware of Xabi's gaze. “Time for home now, eh?” Wes whined, licking at Steven's wrist. Steven rubbed its head, as he crooned, “ _I_ have to go back, I hope _not_ to see you soon! No hard feelings, eh?” Wes barked softly as if in sympathy and Steven laughed. “Thanks, I knew you’d understand.”

As soon as the door clicked closed behind them in Steven’s bedsit, Xabi crowded Steven against it. Before Steven even had a chance to open his mouth, a question already in his eyes, Xabi placed his thumb against Steven’s lips. “We’re not drunk,” he said simply, before he angled his head, sweeping his tongue into Steven’s mouth, buzzed on the taste of coffee and him. 

Steven at first tentative, shoulders stiff, hands at his sides, as if unsure. Xabi placed his hand against Steven's cheek as he nibbled at his lower lip, teased kisses, until he felt Steven's resistance ebbing away, the set of his shoulders softening. With a broken, muffled sigh, Steven responded, and when Xabi felt his hands on his body, he considered it a win. Steven tore his mouth from Xabi's, as he mouthed along Xabi's jaw, his teeth on his collar bone. Xabi took it all in; his hands stroking Steven in order to comfort, the stutter of breath as their lips met again, kisses in place of the things they couldn't say. 

Xabi now open to his share of whatever this pain was, while he could; knowing that as soon as he left, Steven would wrap this tightly within himself, putting it to one side until the next time he found himself low enough to come here alone again. They broke apart on a shared shudder of breath, Xabi thumbed at the corner of Steven’s eye, noticing that he had yet to shave, stubble now approaching five o’ clock, the weak morning light throwing everything into delicate shadows. 

Then got the answer he really hadn't been ready for.

“2007,” Steven admitted, his gaze unflinching. His tone as neutral when discussing another loss he had come to terms with the aid of time and distance. “The UEFA Champions League final.”

 

FIN


End file.
